


Someone's Gotta Watch Your Six

by Alitomy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bonding over alcohol, Booker x Nile Friendship, Gen, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, basically siblings, bc i love them so much, bonding over forging famous artworks, bonding over nightmares, the team seem a bit cold towards booker but i promise they dont hate him lol, they deal with the nightmares together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alitomy/pseuds/Alitomy
Summary: Nile and Booker get thrown into the same bedroom in each safehouse.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman
Comments: 18
Kudos: 258





	Someone's Gotta Watch Your Six

**Author's Note:**

> bc who isnt a sucker for a good nile x booker friendship fic?

Neither had any idea when they’d decided to share rooms at safehouses or hotels. One safehouse they were sleeping in a communal bedroom with the other three, then next safehouse they were thrown into the only spare bedroom remaining after Joe pulled Nicky into what Nile deemed was their room every stay, and Andy had called shotgun on the other bedroom before Booker had even opened his groggy eyes from sleeping the entire trip. 

That same night, they both dreamt. Of a woman who had belonged to the ocean for the past five hundred years, screaming nothing but bubbles as she thrashed against the iron. Booker woke first, flinching into consciousness. He was used to these dreams after two hundred years of having them, and he was able to quickly regain his bearings of the room they were currently in. 

“Nile,” he whispered, sitting up and placing his hands on the new immortal’s shoulders to stop her from flinching hard enough to cause any harm. Nile was flinching, still asleep, still _dreaming_ of Quynh. God, if Booker could stop them for her, he would in a heartbeat. “Nile!” 

She awoke with a scream, sitting upright so quickly that she had headbutted Booker right in the nose, causing it to start bleeding. Fumbling through her apologies, she scanned the room with darting eyes before they landed back onto Booker. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly, calming her breathing down and rubbing the back of her neck. The dreams were still relatively new to her, after only a few months of them occurring. They were horrible. Absolutely horrible. She couldn’t fathom how one would cope being constantly drowned with no concept of time or reality, and absolutely no hope. 

“It’s fine, are you okay?” Booker asked softly, blowing out any leftover blood still in his nose before turning to her, wiping his bloody hands on his jeans. Booker never seemed to wear pyjamas, he always slept in jeans. 

Nile sighed and sat up properly, crossing her legs and leaning against her pillow which she had manoeuvred against the bedframe. “It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” 

Booker looked at her in pity, shaking his head. “You can only find ways to numb the pain. But even then, it doesn’t always last long enough for you to recover before the next one hits and you’re reliving that same torture all over again.” 

“You’ve been having this dream for two hundred years..” Nile said slowly, coming to the realisation, before smiling softly. “Now I get why you’re the alcoholic in the family.” 

Booker snorted and nodded, keeping his head down as he played with loose threads of his knitted jumper. “If you ever want to taste the good stuff, you know where to find me.” 

Nile let out a full-bellied laugh and shook her head, leaning it against the wall behind her. “You always seem to be right next to me.” 

“Well, someone’s gotta watch your six.” 

~ 

They jump through countries and safehouses, each and every time Booker and Nile were paired off into a bedroom together if there weren’t enough. Each night they dealt with their dreams together. Whether it had been through talking about their lost families, sketching _(even though neither were that good, nor as good as Joe)_ , or creeping down into the living-room to watch the TV on low volume. 

This dream had been particularly bad. 

Nile awoke with a gasp, the scream caught in her throat. She adjusted her eyes to the dim room, and saw a sliver of light coming from under her door. Slipping out from under the sheets, Nile tiptoed across her room and peeped out the door, finding Booker hunched over the kitchen table with a bottle of god-knows-what alcohol. 

Grinning to herself, she opens her door and walks out into the common area, plonking herself down on the chair opposite Booker at the table. When he slowly looked up from the bottle, Nile instantly knew that he’d been at it for a while, if she couldn’t already tell by the half-empty bottle that was caressed in his hands. 

“You’ve been busy.” She nodded to the bottle. Getting a grunt in response, she slowly reached out and gently tapped the top of his hands with her fingertips. “You gonna share?” 

“I’m not going to be responsible for turning you into the resident alcoholic part two, Nile,” Booker replied, voice hoarse from the lack of use. “You should find a better way of dealing with the dreams.” 

Nile scoffed and starting firmly peeling away his fingers from around the bottle, plucking the glass from his grip. “And let you have all the fun? Nuh uh, no way. I want in on all this fancy, old ass booze you’ve got lying around these safehouses.” 

Booker grinned.

They passed the bottle back and forth until it was empty. But Booker only pulled another one out from under the table, seemingly out of thin air. 

“You knew it was gonna be a rough night?” Nile queried as he opened the bottle of vodka. 

“It’s always a rough night. I just had an inkling that you would join me in my moping. And besides, you always gotta have a backup.” Booker winked and flicked the top off the bottle, bringing it to his lips. 

~ 

The others found the pair curled up on the couch in front of a muted TV, the near-empty bottle of vodka dangling from Nile’s fingertips as they snoozed. 

Nile was woken by a particularly loud snore from Booker, who had his arm around her shoulders and was leaning back, legs fully splayed out in front of him. Startled, she flinched awake and scanned the room, her military training never leaving her. 

Groaning, she lifted the bottle and skulled the rest of the liquid before setting the bottle down gently. She uncurled her legs and removed herself from under Booker’s heavy arm and stood, stretching hard until she heard a few pops of bone before turning around, freezing solid. 

Andy was sat at the kitchen table in the same seat Nile was in just hours prior, with Joe sitting next to her and Nicky leaning against the countertop. 

“Uh… Morning?” 

Nicky smiled and nodded to the lonely mug of steaming tea which rested on the table. “Some tea for you, Nile.”

“Grazie,” she mumbled in Italian before moving to the mug that was deemed hers. Feeling their eyes still on her, she stared back at them. “What?” 

“I hope Booker isn’t influencing you too much with the alcohol,” Andy said matter-of-factly. “He already burns through our stock enough as it is, he doesn’t need a drinking buddy.” 

“Who said Nile was my drinking buddy?” The gruff voice came from the couch, and Nile turned her head to see Booker’s arm now resting over his eyes as the man slowly came back into consciousness. 

“If you guys are having trouble with your dreams, you need to tell us,” Andy kept her eyes on Nile, clearly more worried about how she was dealing with it. 

“And what are you gonna do, Boss? Hold our hands and sing Kumbaya?” Booker sat up and turned his body so he was now resting his lower back against the armrest, but could still face the team with a flick of his head. 

“Booker-” 

“It was one time. No need to get pissed at the kid for wanting a drink.” 

Nile remained silent, sipping her tea as Booker and Andy stared each other down for what felt like forever, the silence only broken by the _POP_ of the toaster, which elicited a happy sound from Nicky, who began serving plates. 

“And breakfast is served!” 

~

“Hey Book.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you teach me some forgery tricks?” 

Booker snapped his neck up to look at Nile with an incredulous expression on his face, halting his hand movements which were cleaning his rifle before the next mission. 

“You what?” 

“Can you, teach me, how to forge something?” Nile repeated, slowing her words as a joke. 

“Uh, why?” Booker wiped his fingers down with a rag before placing the cloth on the table. “Why do you want to know how to forge stuff? It’s quite hard nowadays with all this technology.” 

Nile shrugged. “I was walking around a small museum earlier and noticed something not quite right with a particular Monet painting I saw hanging on the wall.” 

Booker grumbled something incoherent before looking up at her. “Bastard stole my idea, so I made it my mission to make as many copies as possible, varying from identical to obviously fake. I wanted the public to find them all and question the integrity of the piece, question why there were so many, find the real amongst the fake.” 

She stood there stunned. He hadn’t even tried to deny that he forged the painting. “Wait, you said he stole your idea?” 

“Well not idea, but technique,” Booker said as he stood from his chair. “Come, I’ll teach you how to paint like Monet.” 

~

It became their thing. 

Sharing rooms even if there were plenty for each immortal. 

Drinking more than a few bottles every so often in order to numb the pain, even if for a little while. 

Hunching over an easel as he guides her arm, mimicking the strokes of whatever famous artist they were impersonating at the time. 

Booker sometimes got dressed up in a painter costume that made Nile double over in laughter. 

_’Tu n'aimes pas ça? Tout cela en dehors de l'immersion, Nil!’_ He has exclaimed as he twirled his moustache in mockery, even though it was way too short to come close to stereotypical. 

_’Oui oui je sais. Tu as l'air ridicule,’_ she breathed out, wiping tears from her eyes. 

Nile enjoyed spending time with Booker, even if most of his hobbies were semi-frowned upon by the others. She didn’t like the way the subtle staring weighed Booker down, and it only made her want to learn more of his talents. 

There were plenty of more secrets that were holed up inside of that man, and she was gonna dig and dig and dig until she reached his core.

**Author's Note:**

> French Translations brought to you by Google Translate!  
> ’Tu n'aimes pas ça? Tout cela en dehors de l'immersion, Nil: You don't like it? This is all apart of the immersion, Nile  
> ’Oui oui je sais. tu as l'air ridicule: Yes yes, I know. You look ridiculous  
> ~  
> follow me on tumblr: alit0my


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